A woman who gave birth to a baby inside a sports bar’s bathroom and then disposed of the infant in the toilet tank pleads guilty in the death of the newborn. When Amanda Hein, 27, gave birth to a baby in that Pennsylvania sports bar, the infant was alive, according to the medical examiner’s report.

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MSN News reports on March 28, that a cleaning crew discovered the body of a newborn boy in the toilet tank at the Starters Pub in Bethlehem back in August. In exchange for her guilty plea, the death penalty was taken off the table.

Hein, who was on medication for severe depression, acknowledges that she understood what she was doing at the time she put her newborn son in the toilet tank. Michael Corriere, the defense attorney, was originally prepared to argue that the baby was suffering from an illness at birth that led Hein to believe that the infant was dead.

A jury will be the people to decide in next month's trial whether Hein should be convicted of first-degree murder, which would carry a life prison term, or third-degree murder, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 to 40 years. Corriere said to Hein at the preliminary hearing:

"We are going to argue on your behalf that you acted in extreme recklessness of life."

Originally prosecutors were seeking the death penalty, but that would have been a hard sell to a jury because of Hein’s mental health issues. Then the death sentence was taken out of the realm of possibilities in a bargaining plea in turn for Hein entering a guilty plea.

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Roz Zurko is a freelance writer originally from Milford, Conn. Today she writes from her home at the foot of the Berkshires in Massachusetts. Her articles have appeared in magazines, newspapers and online. She has been a guest author on BBC radio and her online articles are read by more than a million people each month.